British Director Luna Carmoon’s ‘Hoard’ Scores Three Venice Critics’ Week Awards, ‘Malqueridas’ Takes Best Film

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival’s Cinemed industry section has teamed up with Beirut-based cultural nonprofit Aflamuna on a new initiative, under which 10 film and doc projects from a wide range of Arab countries will soon be unveiled to prospective partners. The new program, called Cinemed and Aflamuna Professional Encounters, features 10 Arab works in development that reflect a slew of themes relevant to the region, including political turbulence, societal changes, female empowerment and climate change concerns.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor If Tom Hanks is America’s Dad, then Will Smith is the cool big brother. Smith has been a favorite of audiences and awards voters during his impressive three-decade career.

David Byrne met A24’s young fans as the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense is set to gross $800,673 from 264 Imax screens in North America this weekend. Its cumulative gross of $1.43 million includes Thursday screenings and a live event at TIFF for this remastered version of the 1984 Jonathan Demme-directed concert film ranked by critics as one of the best ever.

Naman Ramachandran Oliver Pearn’s feature directorial debut “On the Line” has been snapped up for U.K. and U.S. distribution by Trinity Creative Partnership and 101 Films.

Rotten Tomatoes has marked its 25th anniversary by asking users to submit their top films of the past quarter-century. Filmmaker Christopher Nolan has reigned supreme, with movies including Inception clinching the high positions.At Number One is Nolan’s 2008 film The Dark Knight, followed by his 2014 movie Interstellar and 2010 film Inception.Another director who has more than one film in the Top 10 is Peter Jackson, with two installments of his The Lord Of The Rings movies landing in the list.Top 10 – greatest films of the last 25 years:01. The Dark Knight02. Interstellar03. Inception04. The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King05. Avengers: Endgame06. The Matrix07. The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring08. Parasite09. Everything Everywhere All At Once10. The Lord Of The Rings: The Two TowersDropping just outside the Top 10 is Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Fight Club (1999).

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender.

A first-time filmmaker has claimed the top prize at the 19th Annual Camden Film Festival in Maine, one of the country’s foremost all-documentary festivals.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams has much to celebrate this weekend. His first narrative/fiction film, Cassandro, opens theatrically today. And he has just been named the recipient of the Critics Choice Impact Award from the Critics Choice Association.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent U.S. director Darren Lynn Bousman’s English and Arabic-language horror film “The Cello,” starring Jeremy Irons and “Saw” star Tobin Bell, is set to open theatrically across Saudi Arabia on Thursday, marking a significant moment in the kingdom’s moviemaking ambitions. The high-end chiller, about a cellist who finds out his new instrument comes with a centuries-old curse, is generating local buzz and robust ticket pre-sales following its gala premiere on Sept.

Ayelet Menahemi’s family comedy Seven Blessings swept the board at Israel’s Ophir Awards on Sunday evening, triumphing in nine categories including in best film.

Kate Mara is joining the cast!

, Love at First Sight, premieres this Friday, and it stars White Lotus scene stealer as well as Bohemian Rhapsody breakout Ben Hardy. The two have off-the-charts chemistry in this charming story about timing, meet-cutes, and embracing life’s unpredictability.The premise is simple: Hadley (Richardson) and Oliver (Hardy) begin to fall in love on their flight from New York to London but accidentally lose each other at customs.

EXCLUSIVE: Primetime Emmy nominee Kate Mara has joined Laurence Fishburne in the sci-fi thriller, The Astronaut. Terminator: Dark Fate actor Gabriel Luna has also joined the cast.

Canadian director Ariane Louis-Seize’s comedy-drama Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person has scooped the Director’s Award at Venice parallel section Giornate degli Autori.

Marta Balaga Controversy over Venice title “Green Border” continues to heat up as director Agnieszka Holland gave an ultimatum to Poland’s Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro following his comments about her film. According to the statement shared with Variety, Holland has hired the lawyers Sylwia Gregorczyk-Abram and Michał Wawrynkiewicz.

With 12 reviews so far, Roman Polanski’s latest film, “The Palace,” currently sits at a horrendous 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Polanski hasn’t really had a hit film in a very long time and has also been at the center of controversy for decades, but a 0% is still really rough, with some reviews calling it the worst movie of the year.

Late Oscar-winning Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto was celebrated at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday with the Out Of Competition premiere of concert film Opus.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent British Hollywood director Simon West (“Con Air,” “Lara Croft:Tomb Raider”) is set to direct Saudi Arabia-set epic “Antara” that will be shot in Neom, the sprawling production hub in Saudi Arabia’s northwestern corner. The English-language blockbuster based on Arab history is the tale of Antara ibn Shaddad, a slave warrior who was propelled to mythical status in the sixth century after winning his freedom and becoming a beloved knight and a widely celebrated Bedouin poet in the region. “Antara,” which was announced during the Venice Film Festival – where there is a strong Saudi industry presence – is co-produced by Irish entrepreneur, writer and producer Alexander Amartei.

The cast, producers and collaborators of Roman Polanski’s The Palace showed their support for the filmmaker here in Venice today during a press conference for the movie that world premieres out of competition this evening. 

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Venice Gap-Financing Market is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this year with record-breaking attendance and impressive new figures on the projects that the core component of Venice’s industry side has helped bring to the big screen. All told, over the span of a decade, “We have had 370 films (including immersive) from 70 countries and 80% of them have been completed within six months after the festival,” says Pascal Diot who heads the Venice Production Bridge, as the Lido’s market is known.